TIP OF THE WEEK

There are many factors that influence when a child reaches certain developmental milestones. Use this timeline to know what to expect in the first year.

Advertisement

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

That’s what my sister’s doctors told her they were doing earlier this week as they discussed her impending C-section.

When it comes to pregnancy, my sister has had a rough go of it.She’s lost several pregnancies. And when she is pregnant, she’s sick all day long, for the entire nine months. This time around, she had such severe gestational diabetes that she had to be put on insulin, and the doctors eventually decided that they needed to deliver the baby a bit early. They warned that, due to the fact that my sister’s placenta had attached to the scar tissue of three previous C-sections, there was a 99% chance that they would have to do a hysterectomy to keep her from hemorrhaging. And, they said that the baby would most certainly end up in the NICU.

So this Wednesday, when my sister went into the hospital for her baby’s delivery, we all braced ourselves for the worst.But, thankfully, she delivered a healthy baby boy (no NICU), she and the baby handled the surgery beautifully, and my sister even held onto her uterus, though it’s officially “closed for business.”I’m so happy for her and my brother-in-law, because they have their much hoped-for baby boy, and their family is healthy, happy, whole, and complete.

I really needed that good news. Because I was starting to have a hard time thinking positively. After seven weeks of sleep deprivation, little things are really starting to get to me: our oven and our dishwasher breaking; a tooth crumbling in my mouth; the midwife telling me that I have a hugediastasis; postpartum bleeding that refuses to stop; Charlie proving on an hourly basis that three really is the new two; and the approximately 2,057 diapers I have changed in the past seven weeks between Charlie’s ongoing salmonella issues and a newborn’s diapers. And bigger things: Charlie passing his salmonella on to his cousin and Will landing himself in the Emergency Room this week after a choking incident at work. I was starting to feel completely and utterly drained, exhausted, and used up.

Life with a newborn can be such a house of cards that when even the slightest little thing goes wrong, it can feel like everything’s falling apart. God forbid that something reallybig should go wrong.Thank God that this time, it didn’t.

Chalk one up for hope.

Join FitPregnancy.com's Managing Editor Dana Rousmaniere each week as she blogs about her third pregnancy and new baby.